Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive... intention, that characterizes modern writing--he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ou...ght not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

A deep man believes in miracles, waits for them, believes in magic, believes that the orator will decompose his adversary; believe...s that the evil eye can wither, that the heart's blessing can heal; that love can exalt talent; can overcome all odds.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

When this immediate evil power has been defeated, we shall not yet have won the long battle with the elemental barbarities. Anothe...r Hitler, it may be an invisible adversary, will attempt, again, and yet again, to destroy our frail civilization. Is it true, I wonder, that the only way to escape a war is to be in it? When one is a part of an actuality does the imagination find a release?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but s...links out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

I know as well as any one, [the devil] is an adversary, whom if we resist, he will fly from us--but I seldom resist him at all; fr...om a terror, that though I may conquer, I may still get a hurt in the combat--so ... instead of thinking to make him fly, I generally fly myself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

As parents it is well to be aware of the tendency to equate energetic activity with contest. Our children's worth does not depend ...on their ability to trounce one another. And surely we can find ways of frolicking and being healthy and active together in some joyful, free way that is not an adversary relationship.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »